


Just A Lease From God (the Queen of Clubs remix)

by seimaisin



Category: Bandom, Black Cards, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Killjoys, Female Protagonist, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:57:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seimaisin/pseuds/seimaisin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, Bebe Rexha was just a girl in Battery City. Nowadays, S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W and the Killjoys make her life a lot more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Lease From God (the Queen of Clubs remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancinbutterfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Two Red Marys and I'm Full of Grace](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3021) by dancinbutterfly. 



> Title taken from Black Cards' "Club Called Heaven".

Bebe doesn’t actually hate Heaven, truth be told. It’s just another place where the rich and powerful can flout BLI edicts and behave like they did pre-war. The woman who runs it is old enough to remember what pre-war clubs were like - and rich enough that she hasn’t been forced to take the drugs that obscure a person’s memory. Bebe likes her - she lets her drink non-alcoholic drinks for free while she’s stuck there watching Pete, and she doesn’t say anything when Bebe comes around during the day to meet with people who technically shouldn’t be anywhere near the city.

The problem is that Heaven brings out the worst in Pete. Actually, that’s not true either. Heaven brings out some of the best in Pete; he’s freer here than anywhere else. She sees his shoulders relax when he walks in the door. His tongue gets looser, and he teases her more. If it were up to her, she’d do what she could to make sure Pete was always like this.

The real problem is Bebe - her job is to make sure Pete _isn’t_ free, not like this. Some days, she hates herself for it. It keeps him alive, though. That’s good enough for her.

She can’t deny him the occasional urge to let loose, though, so every so often she ends up sitting at Heaven’s bar and praying that Pete expends all his energy on dancing and anonymous boys. He’s safer that way, much safer than the times when he gets it into his head to try to change BLI from the inside. _That_ is a fool’s game - she tells him so all the time, but Pete only listens when it suits him. He has no idea how closely Korse and S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W watch him. In fact, he has no idea Bebe is actually employed by S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W. If Bebe has anything to say about it, he never will.

There haven’t been any incidents in a little while, though, so she’s gotten lax. It’s the only excuse she can come up with later, when she remembers how she took her eyes off the dance floor for just a few moments - to exchange pleasantries with Heaven’s owner, accept another free drink with an appreciative nod - and missed Mikey’s approach.

Fucking Killjoys. At that moment, she’s never regretted befriending them more.

*

Once upon a time, Bebe Rexha was just a girl. Only one of the bored Battery City elite, someone with a family rich enough to get exemptions from BLI’s life management techniques. Not rich enough, however, to skip out on the company’s Service Clause, in which any person who benefited from BLI’s many technological and pharmaceutical advances was required to spend a year working for the company in a position their experts deemed suitable for your talents. So, when Bebe turned twenty, she took the required placement tests and waited, like everyone else. She remembers telling Pete that she would do anything, just as long as they didn’t make her sit in one of those horrible white cubes for ten hours a day.

Nowadays, she sometimes wishes she’d spent a year stamping approvals on drug prescriptions. Her life would be a whole lot easier.

*

After they watch the Killjoys disappear into the night, Pete wants to drive. So Bebe drives, around the symmetrical square blocks of Battery City, up and down streets that look exactly the same. A person would get lost if the BLI compound didn’t rise up above it all, pointing to the only true north anyone in the city cares about. She drives past one of the tunnels that leads into the Zones; for a brief moment, she pictures herself making the sharp turn and driving out of town, hauling ass to somewhere hot and dirty and completely foreign to the man who now sleeps fitfully in the seat next to her.

Instead, she makes the safe right turn and heads for home, just like she’s paid to do.

She gets Pete home and wakes him up just enough to make him stumble into the elevator that will deposit him in his apartment. The door guard nods at Bebe as she makes for the doors to her own rooms. His eyes have the slightly cloudy look of one of the middle class - someone who makes enough money to afford one of BLI’s decent drug regimens, but isn’t high enough on the food chain to know he can avoid a lot of the drugs, if he greases the right palms. Or, maybe he’s just one of those people who is happier living in a BLI-induced haze. There are certainly enough of those in the city.

Whatever the case, he’s alert enough to see her enter her apartment. That’s all she needs. Inside, she ditches the dress in favor of a black shirt and a battered gray trench coat. Her boots are left by the door, traded for comfortable black sneakers. She tucks her ray gun inside the trench and climbs out the window of her bedroom. There’s a reason she insisted the Wentz family give her this apartment when she became Pete’s bodyguard. They think it’s because she can see what goes on in front of the building through her living room windows. Certainly, no one ever thinks the bedroom window - the one that faces an alcove that houses the trash dumpsters - is any sort of vital feature. Except Bebe.

Her car - well, not her car, the car that S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W gave her when she got assigned to the Zones - is housed in an abandoned warehouse a few blocks away. It’s an ancient black Mustang, built at least 50 years before the Helium Wars. It takes seven tries to get the motor to start, and when it does, black smoke fills the back of the warehouse. If she drives it out to the Zones, chances are good that the sand and wind will cause the damned thing to die somewhere in the middle of nowhere. She keeps the equivalent of an entire mechanic’s shop in the trunk for just that eventuality. It also carries a couple changes of clothing and enough water to survive out in the Zones for a couple of days. She’s been out there often enough to know the drill.

She heads out of town via a checkpoint that’s usually deserted this time of night. Tonight, however, a faceless BLI drone sits in the security booth. She curses under her breath, but doesn’t stop. She’s got a travel permit. Nevertheless, she can feel her heart beating underneath the skin of her throat as she exits the tunnel.

The desert stretches in front of her. She guns the engine, and the city slowly shrinks in her rear view mirror.

*

She finds them exactly where she expected them to be, just a few miles outside the tunnel in Zone 1. Three figures huddle around a fire a few yards beyond the road, but one sits on the hood of the car parked haphazardly in the brush. “You guys really need to find another crash point,” Bebe says as she gets out of her car. “Korse knows you stop around here.”

“Did you tell him?” Mikey asks. He scoots over when she boosts herself up onto the hood next to him.

“Of course I did. I like my life.”

“You could’ve given him a false location.”

“You think I’m the only spy out here? Gotta pick my lies, honey, or else I’m no good to anyone.”

“Fair enough.”

They’re silent for a few minutes before Bebe finally sighs and punches Mikey in the shoulder. Hard. “What the actual fuck did you think you were doing tonight?”

Mikey rubs his shoulder and inches away from her. “I’m not the one who started it.”

“Bullshit. You had to come into the club, didn’t you?”

“We got separated. There were dracs posted every few feet for two blocks.”

“Asshole.” Bebe’s spent the last hour working up a good bit of pissed off. “You decided to taunt Korse and BLI, and now Pete might pay the price.”

“The fuck he will. He is BLI, or his family is.”

“Exactly my point.” Bebe punches him again. “Pete is good people. A little strange and impulsive, but good. I don’t want Korse taking an interest in him, you jackass.”

Mikey sighs. “I don’t, either. But he started it.”

“What are you, twelve?”

Mikey makes a rude gesture at her. Bebe shoves him and stares off into the fire. “He’s a big boy,” Mikey says. “I’m sure he’s old enough to take responsibility for himself.”

Bebe rolls her eyes. “You’d be surprised. Pete and his friends are a lot better than other people in the city, but they still lack a certain amount of awareness.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“What, I should take on the entire BLI doctrine all at once, all by myself?”

“You’re not alone.”

“Like hell I’m not.” She scowls. “Until you guys find a way to put a spy into my areas of the city the way Korse puts his spies out here, I’m on my own.”

“I thought you were our spy in your area of the city.”

“Fuck off. You know what I’m talking about.”

“But do you? Know what you’re talking about?”

“Keep it up, and your balls will take up residence in your nostrils.”

Mikey laughs. Bebe rubs her temples. The whole night has given her a gigantic headache.

*

Bebe hadn’t known what to expect from her placement tests. She certainly hadn’t expected to find herself sitting in front of Korse.

“You’re smart,” he said to her. “Fearless. You can shoot a gun. And,” he finished, leaning in close enough that Bebe could smell the musky cologne he wore, “you know there’s a lot more to the world than the idiotic night clubs your friends frequent.”

Bebe wanted to say “there’s also more to life than getting drugged up and sleep-walking through life,” but she was certainly smart enough not to say that to the head of S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W. She’d only met Korse once before, at a party thrown by an old friend of Pete’s. The idiot had joined the anti-BLI underground, and had gotten cocky enough that he was preaching to large groups of people in the privileged upper city. Korse and a half dozen dracs had interrupted the party; Korse had shot the boy in the chest without blinking, and the dracs had hauled him away. They left without saying a word. Bebe hadn’t heard a word against BLI in any of those circles since. Not from anyone other than Pete’s inner circle, and they were at least smart enough to keep it just between themselves.

“Are you afraid to get your hands dirty?” Korse asked. There was no other answer to that question but “no,” so he smiled. “Then I have a job for you.”

*

“Seriously,” Bebe says after a few minutes, “stay away from Pete.”

“I won’t promise that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Mikey has something in his hands; when Bebe looks closer, she sees him fingering Pete’s ID bracelet. “I don’t know. I liked him.”

“Oh, jesus. You have got to be kidding me.” This is just what Bebe needs. Her dumb, impulsive charge - best friend, family, whatever the hell Pete actually is, she doesn’t really know some days - and an equally dumb, impulsive wanted criminal pining after each other. “Why is this my life?” she asks under her breath, not for the first time.

Mikey shoots her a sharp look. “What? You think he’s too good for the likes of us?”

Bebe shoves him hard enough that he tips off the car hood. She stays put while he stumbles to his feet and leans against the car. “Don’t be an asshole. I think you two could get each other killed.”

Mikey shrugs. “Welcome to my life.”

“But not Pete’s.”

“Maybe it should be.” When Bebe narrows her eyes, he spreads his hands. “Come on, what are we doing out here if not trying to knock people out of being BLI zombies?”

“You’re staying alive. Just like the rest of us. I understand what you do out here, you know I do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But we’re all just trying to survive - I want to survive. I want Pete to survive. I want you to survive. Is that so hard to believe?”

“I believe it. I just don’t think you’re looking at the bigger picture.” Mike stares at her, light from the distant fire flickering across his skin. “You’re going to have to choose someday, Bebe. You’re gonna have to pick a side, and let the consequences happen.”

He doesn’t understand. Won’t understand. Mikey and his friends have been out in the Zones for so long that Bebe doesn’t think they quite get what it’s like to balance a conscience with a Battery City survival instinct. Bebe’s not sure Mikey was actually born with a survival instinct, quite frankly. She slides off the car hood and shoves Mikey again, this time more gently. “You know if I catch you sneaking into Pete’s bedroom or some kind of idiotic move like that, I’ll have to shoot you.”

Mikey snorts. “What, you think I’m stupid?” When Bebe just stares at him, he grins. “Trust me. You’d never catch me.”

It’s not a promise, but he’s probably right. If anyone could sneak into the home of one of BLI’s vice presidents and not get caught, it’s him. Bebe rolls her eyes. “Don’t get yourself ghosted, jackass.”

“Likewise.” She starts to turn away, but Mikey grabs her arm. “Listen. We’re heading for 3, Dr. D is broadcasting out of an old fast food restaurant. If you need us, we’ll probably be there for a week or so.”

Bebe raises an eyebrow. “Not afraid I’ll tell Korse?”

“Not really.”

“Only a fool trusts anyone out here.” But Bebe gives him the ghost of a smile, and he squeezes her arm before letting it go.

When she drives off, she glances back to see Mikey still standing next to the car, studying the bracelet in his hand.

*

When she gets back to the city, she runs by S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W headquarters, just in case the drone in the tunnel reports her license number. The Killjoys camp is outside of current surveillance boundaries - at least, until Korse gets the budget increase to fix the hole - so she simply reports to the supervisor on duty. “Saw one of the Killjoys at Heaven tonight. Did a quick perimeter sweep to see if I could kick up anyone else. No luck.”

“I heard about Heaven,” the drac sitting behind the desk says. Bebe is always a little creeped out by the muffled voices that come from behind the masks. “Boss is gonna want to know why you didn’t grab him.”

Bebe doesn’t have to feign too much of her irritation. “Had to choose between him and my goddamned babysitting duties. If I’d gone in shooting, Pete could have gotten killed.” She leans over the drac. “You tell me, if you’d had to choose between arresting an idiot Zonerunner and keeping the Wentz kid safe, what would you have done?”

The drac snorts. “Probably would’ve gone for the runner. Rich jackasses are a dime a dozen, and the folks in charge are always looking for another way to make the Killjoys look like assholes.”

Bebe resists the urge to smack him. The thing is, he’s probably right. Had Mikey somehow gotten Pete killed - or even hurt - BLI would have had the incident all over Fact News, telling honest citizens to beware of the brutal Zonerunners who didn’t care about the lives of innocents. It would have been a PR bonanza.

“Well,” she says, “you weren’t there.”

She leaves with a larger headache than she’d had going in.

*

Korse had given her a colorful new wardrobe and a set of battered, yet top-notch ray guns. “Go out into the Zones,” he said. “Befriend people, make them think you’re one of them. Find out what the runners are saying, what they’re doing.”

“Why?” she’d asked. “I’ve seen your surveillance cameras, and I’ve heard the transmissions you monitor. You already know most of what’s happening in the Zones.”

“Most,” he repeated, “but not all. And not as much as you might think. Some of them are smart. Too smart.” Korse stared off into space for a moment. When his gaze returned to Bebe, it was filled with something that resembled hatred; obviously, Bebe thought, Korse was exempt from the emotion-purging drugs BLI pushed on the rest of the populace. “I want real eyes and ears out there. Blend in. Bring me back whatever you can find out.”

She’d spent a year running the Zones and giving Korse information that led the dracs to bust a half dozen Zonerunner hideouts. She’d also given the Killjoys enough information to save a dozen more. Despite what Mikey thinks, Bebe made her choice on the day she hid inside an abandoned warehouse and watched three dracs brutalize a teenage girl whose only crime was possessing some spray paint and an arsenal of dirty words. She killed them all, and delivered the nearly catatonic girl to Show Pony when he rolled past the next day.

When she got back to the city, she told Korse that Kobra Kid and Fun Ghoul had jumped his drac patrol. Mikey and Frank had been happy to take the credit.

She almost left. At the end of her year, she almost got behind the wheel of her car and drove out to the Zones for good. But then Korse pulled her aside before one of her runs. “I’m hearing things about that Wentz kid. He’s your friend, right?”

It felt like a million years ago to Bebe, the times she danced her nights away next to Pete and Gabe and Patrick and everyone else. “Yeah, I know him,” she said cautiously.

“He and his friends are talking about dangerous things in public places. Some people around here want to make an example of him. Can’t have a VP’s son making that kind of trouble, can we?”

Bebe swallowed. “I’ll talk to him.”

“You’ll do better than that.” Korse smiled at her. It felt a little like oil dripping down her spine. “You’re being reassigned. You’ll be his bodyguard from now on.”

“But … my year is just about up. My contract is almost done.”

“So it is.” Korse nodded slowly. “I could always find someone else to watch him. Someone who doesn’t know him at all. I don’t know what would happen if Pete doesn’t pay attention to them, though. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who takes the opinions of strangers too seriously. And if someone doesn’t convince him to be a little more discreet …”

Bebe took the job.

*

The next morning, Pete knocks on Bebe’s door just three hours after she stumbled into bed. She lets him in, rubbing her eyes and scowling. He frowns at her. “Seriously, how many hours of beauty sleep do you need?”

“You clearly need a lot more than you get,” she counters. _What are you, twelve?_ Her words from the night before echo mockingly in her head. When Pete’s back is turned, she sticks her tongue out at her reflection in the mirror.

Pete simply hops up onto her kitchen counter and starts messing with the pill dispenser he gave her for her birthday last year - he modified it to spit out tiny sugary candies instead of medication. It’s haphazardly painted in a rainbow of colors, rather like an elementary school art project. “Thanks,” he says.

“What for?”

“Last night. You know. You could’ve …”

“No, I couldn’t. Trust me.”

“I do.”

When Bebe finally gets enough coffee in her system to focus properly, she notices a green bandanna tied around Pete’s wrist. She should probably tell him to take the damned thing off, that it’ll get him into trouble when they head in to the factory.

She sighs and grabs the candy out of Pete’s hand. She ignores the bandanna.

*

When Korse calls her into S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W headquarters a few days later, she manages to stare levelly at him as he studies her. “I hear there was an … incident at Heaven.”

“Not really. Pete likes pretty boys. He chose that one just to piss me off, I think.”

“Did it work?”

Bebe raises an eyebrow. “Not as well as he wanted it to.”

There is a short silence - during which Bebe feels her pulse speed up - and then Korse laughs. “I bet. Have you been in contact with the Killjoys since?”

“No,” she says. “I went out looking for them that night, but they’ve apparently found another campsite.”

“Yes, I have some leads on that.”

Korse looks a little smug, and Bebe struggles not to show any nerves. “You heard about 5, then? One of the kids I caught last week said Dr. Death was broadcasting from his old bunker, the one he abandoned last year.”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t heard that, no. I’ll have to check it out.”

Bebe could only hope it distracted him long enough to get a message out to 3. Not that they wouldn’t all be watching out for dracs anyway, but just in case.

Lost in her own thoughts, she nearly misses the beginning of Korse’s next statement. “Actually, I think it might be time to bring your boy in for a conversation.”

Bebe blinks. “What?”

“I give the executive’s families a lot of leeway because I have to. But I have to draw the line somewhere. Pete pushes a lot of boundaries.” Korse sat back in his chair and nodded, as if to himself. “I don’t doubt that you rein him in quite a bit, but some of the people who work in his factory have reported a lot of erratic behavior. He stirs up a lot of emotions that his father’s peers think are harmful to the general populace. Now Pete’s misadventure with Kobra Kid has become a very popular topic of conversation. We can’t have people believing that someone so closely connected to the corporation is conspiring with Zonerunners.”

“I can handle him,” Bebe says quickly. “I can make him …”

“I don’t doubt your abilities, but you can’t stop rumors from spreading. We need Pete to make a statement, condemning all zonerunner activity.”

“I don’t know if I can …”

“You don’t have to. We have drugs for that sort of thing.”

“Sir, Pete doesn’t have very good reactions to drugs.” Translation: Pete has an addictive personality. Every time the corporation has given him some kind of prescribed regimen, he’s ended up back on stim pills, vibrating for three straight days.

“This time, I’m recommending the total behavior modification trial. They’re presenting the idea to Mr. Wentz at a board meeting today. Not that he has to agree. Pete is subject to the BLI contract just like everyone else.”

BLI contracts state that all employees can be required to submit to drug therapy at the whim of the corporation. Bebe hasn’t heard of anyone on Pete’s level being modified since before she started working for S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W. “The last time I heard about that trial,” she says slowly, “the person ended up unable to care for himself.”

“I’m told they’ve used it on many others since then,” Korse says, shrugging. “The research team has had lots of volunteers. They’re paying volunteers’ families a weekly stipend for a whole year.”

Bebe is silent for a moment. When she stands, Korse stands with her. “Well,” she says, surprised at how steady her voice is, “I should get back to the factory, then. I should make sure everything’s running smoothly, just in case Pete’s memory is affected after the treatment.”

“Actually, I’m temporarily reassigning you.” Bebe stares at him, and Korse spreads his hands. “You’re too close to him. I won’t risk any interference in this process.”

Two dracs escort Bebe to a cubicle as far away from the exits as possible. They stay with her even after she pretends to start working on the paperwork Korse has apparently left for her.

Bebe is patient, though. And she’s good at making people disappear when she wants. The dracs were stupid enough not to search her after they took away her gun. Clearly, it’s their own fault when she hits them both with her mini-stunner, a nifty toy provided by Mikey. _You’re going to have to choose someday, Bebe._ Mikey’s voice echoes in her head. Well, then, if this is that someday, she thinks, then that’s what it is. It isn’t like she didn’t know the choice was hanging over her head from the first time she stepped out into the Zones.

Bebe is a practical woman. She knows that the small groups of Zonerunners waging war against BLI are tilting at windmills. But if Korse is going to make her choose between BLI and Pete … well, then she’ll be Don fucking Quixote. BLI can go hang.

*

There are dracs posted in front of the factory; obviously, they’re waiting to grab Pete when he’s on his way out, so they don’t disturb the majority of the drones inside. Dumb - if Bebe were in charge of the operation, she’d go in and tell Pete some lie about someone in his family being in trouble and needing his help, so he’d come out without squawking or resisting. But, she’s not in charge, which works out better for everyone involved, except maybe the dracs.

She slips into a side entrance and makes her way up to Pete’s office through the maintenance halls. No one looks at her sideways - everyone here is used to seeing her skulking around, making sure building security is up to snuff. The inner office workers nod at her when she passes through the outer office. She nods back, mentally saying her goodbyes. They’re good people. Products of BLI drug regimens, yes, but good people. Bebe can’t save everyone.

Pete scowls at her when she comes into his office. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for over an hour. You know I can’t leave unless you’re here, and I haven’t had lunch yet.”

“We’re leaving. Come on.”

Pete looks at her strangely when she leads him through the back door, but he doesn’t say anything until they approach her car, parked in an alley a few blocks away. He stares at the Mustang with wide eyes. “Where did you get this?”

“I’ve had it for a while. Get in.”

Pete takes a look at her face and stops short. Bebe shakes her head, and he gets into the car without further comment.

*

Bebe shoots the guard at the checkpoint without stopping. (She always carries an extra gun in the car. She’s not stupid.) When she sees him fall, she closes the window and tosses the gun into Pete’s lap. Pete is staring at her with wide eyes. “Bebe,” he says slowly, “where the hell are we going?”

“Zone 3.”

“Why?”

“We have friends out there.”

“Wait, we do?” He shakes his head, as if to clear it. “No, really, what the fuck is going on?”

Bebe sighs and reaches over to grasp his hand. “Pete. Do you trust me?”

He answers without hesitation. “More than anyone else in the world.”

“Then trust me now.”

Pete is silent for a long moment. Then, he squeezes Bebe’s hand and leans back in the seat, closing his eyes. Bebe lets go of him and concentrates on the road. The desert stretches in front of them like a shimmering brown ocean. There’s a metaphor about life in the desert somewhere - endless and dangerous, something like that - but Bebe isn’t ready for philosophy quite yet. She keeps her eyes on the horizon and just hopes for the best.


End file.
